


soul-torturing themes

by lotesse



Category: Dark Is Rising Sequence - Susan Cooper
Genre: Juvenilia, M/M, Memory, Purple Prose, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-11-15
Updated: 2004-11-15
Packaged: 2017-10-09 03:53:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/82740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lotesse/pseuds/lotesse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I don't want him to see; he would begin asking questions I don't know how to answer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	soul-torturing themes

A flame in my heart is kindled by the might of the morn's pure breath;  
A passion beyond all passion; a faith that eclipses faith;  
A joy that is more than gladness; a hope that outsoars desire;  
A love that consumes and quickens; a soul-transfiguring fire.  
My life is possessed and mastered: my heart is inspired and filled.  
All other visions have faded: all other voices are stilled.  
My doubts are vainer than shadows: my fears are idler than dreams:  
They vanish like breaking bubbles, those old soul-torturing themes.  
-"The Creed of My Heart" Edmond Gore Alexander Holmes

***

He still has the harp.

It's the first thing I see when I walk into his cottage, standing tall and shrouded in a corner of the room.

I think I first fell in love with him when I saw him play, though the instrument he played then was made of gold, a Thing of Power. This one is natural, golden only when bathed in rare bursts of sunlight. Still, it is no less a thing of magic. I remember how his face relaxed when he played the harp of gold that day on the mountain, all the tensions that had filled him when we confronted the three Lord of the High Magic floating away on the sweet melody pouring out of his hands. He always had lovely hands, long delicate fingers that could make startlingly beautiful music or lead a lost sheep to safety. Right now I feel more like a lost lamb than anything else, and I grimace as I realize how trite that sounds. Still, I wish he would come find me, take me home, heal me.

That's what he did all those years ago; healed me. My wounds have been torn open again since then, but for a few years the bandages he wrapped around my soul kept back my emotional hemorrhage. He understood both my worlds, knew how hard it was to live in both at once. That was very sweet, almost intoxicating, but more potent was the fact that he was the one who understood. Of all the people I could've chosen to share my strange, dualistic existence with, the enigmatic, falcon-eyed Welsh boy was the one I'd have chosen. I should have known he was a great king. He alone among men has ever ruled me.

Things have changed since the time when we shared our great quests. I left Wales and went to University, filling my being with books and hoping vainly that they'd be enough. Of course they weren't. They wouldn't be enough for even a human boy, and I am not human. I feel a bitter smile twisting my face and allow my hair to hide me. I don't want him to see; his perceptions are still preternaturally sharp, and he would begin asking questions I don't know how to answer. It doesn't help that I already know all my professors have to teach me and spend my days only pretending to learn. It's a hiding place, I know, but I need one. Libraries seem safer than most other places. They change very little with the centuries, some parts of them. They're like me.

Sitting here, looking at him, I ask myself why I came back. I try to tell myself I don't know, but it doesn't work. Sod that. I know well enough. The dreams didn't leave me much choice.

They plagued me for weeks. I'd see Bran turning to the sunrise, his eyes blazing brighter than his sword. His gaze raked the coals of my soul, igniting a fire I couldn't-- still can't-- control. I watched helplessly as his beautiful hands caressed a single red rose flung to me by a girl of the Lost Land, so perilously close to my chest that I felt every feather-light touch of his flesh burning into my own skin. I saw his hands flickering up and down the golden filaments of the Harp, calling forth music in a magic so much greater than any of mine.

But memories were not the worst things the dreams threw at me. I began to dream of that which had never happened, that which I had only half admitted I wanted to occur at the time. I felt his hands tracing trails of fire across my body as I burned with the scent of roses. I dreamed of things I have never known, of losing myself in him and of finding everything there in his beautiful pale body stretched out before me like a bed of unspoiled snow. I dreamed that I loved him, and that he loved me. I dreamed of him piercing me like a shard of light and woke up screaming his name in ecstasy as I came messily all over the bedclothes.

And so I came. Back to Wales, which I had avoided since that last Midsummer's Day. I knew even as I sat alone on the train bound for Aberdyfi that I should stay away, but for once I let my heart override my intellect. I never do that. I'm not sure anybody knows I have a heart anymore. I'm as uncertain as they are. It's simpler to go through life without one sometimes.

I didn't 'phone ahead, so he had no way of knowing that I was coming. Still, when he found me standing on his threshold, soaked through by the ever-present rains of Wales, he seemed less surprised than I had expected. He still unconsciously bears himself regally, and kings do not show surprise, for they are never taken unawares. I wonder if he realizes he does that.

Now I am dry, swamped in one of his huge dark sweaters, and out of words. I can't stop looking at him. Vaguely I wonder what happened to his father, if he died or if he just wanted to live by himself. It wouldn't surprise me; he's like that. So beautiful…I am torn from my reverie by the sound of my own voice, and am horrified to realize that I have unintentionally said the name aloud that has been reverberating in my mind like a crystal bell.

He looks up, graceful and unguarded, so honest, so open. I am so tightly closed that I can barely breathe. I can't bear the contrast, but I can't let go. I can't slip. He doesn't know. He mustn't know. I must honor his choice.

He speaks, and I wish fervently that his voice could caress my ears forever. "Will," he says so caringly that I feel my heart constrict within me. Please, Bran, please say my name again…let me gasp yours and never never never stop…When I come back to earth I realize that he's still talking. "…And all these years, I can't believe its been so long." He pulls of the dark glasses, identical to the ones I remember so vividly from before, and looks directly at me. It takes all my strength to bear his gaze. "Why did we do it?"

"Do what?" I mumble automatically.

"Stay apart for so long. I missed you, English boy." His voice is careless, but I can tell that beneath a thin veneer of casualness he is very, very serious.

"Things…changed." Oh, my friend, if only you knew how much.

"S'pose so. I haven't seen any of those Drew kids for years either." He laughs, and I wince at how false it sounds. "Will, what did we do? Why?" I only shake my head. I can't tell him. Must honor his choice. "It's crazy I am. I've always thought of you as the one who really understood me, and then I take a good long look at the calendar and realize that we only spent a few months together. I spend six years thinking I know you, and then you come back."

"You do know me." Not all of me, only that which I am allowed to show you, but you know that much.

"No. I don't know how to talk to you, or why you look worse than you did when you were laid low by that hepatitis, back in the beginning. I don't know why I dream about you, and swords, and music, and Cafall, and all. I don't know what happened, Will."

"We were kids, Bran." My voice is flat.

"Was it all some sort of game, then?"

"Some sort, yeah."

"You sound so sad." What can I say in reply to that? "Will…" his voice is tight, as if it might break. I wonder what a shattering voice might look like. Does it look anything like a broken heart? What about an erased memory? And now he's talking again and I can't believe I missed his words. I want to gather them up and treasure them forever, and then maybe I can pretend that I won't be alone.

"I am your friend, remember? Tell me, please?"

"Tell you what?" Is that my voice? It sounds so soft, like a child's voice, the boy soprano that I used to be.

"It's not blind I am, bachgen. Something's not at rights with you, and I'll know what it is. Telling helps, Will. It lets you share whatever it is, takes some of it away from you."

I just look at him. There's nothing I can say. I should go, but I can't seem to move my body. I feel like the dog Pen, splayed against the ground, helpless to shift myself. And then…am I awake?…he crosses the room in a few short strides and pulls me up out of the chair and now his arms are around me and I can't stop myself because this is all I've ever wanted and I lean in and feel his heart beating beneath my head and I feel his pulse pounding through my body and I look up and now our lips are touching…oh god, more…so sweet and his tongue is awakening places in me I didn't know existed, searching out all the small nuances of my body and I'm thinking that he tastes like sunlight and fog and cold mountain air and…oh Bran….don't stop…kisses down my throat where no one has ever touched me like this his fingers painting me into something free and wild and I pull his mouth back to mine because I don't think I could ever get enough of this… love you so much, can't…explosion, chain reaction, supernova…fire and air and this is magic, more than my power and your harping and anything else in the world or out of it because I belong with you I fit so perfectly here in your arms it's as if we were made for this I love you so, my Pendragon, my sweet prince…

No.

He's not the Pendragon.

He doesn't really know me.

I can't do this.

I pull back. I can't seem to catch my breath and it doesn't help that his beautiful hair is all mussed with passion and his eyes are sparkling and I can see his erection straining at his dark pants and I'm so hard that it aches and he's never looked more desirable but no. I won't.

"Will? What…something wrong, _dewin bach_?" Breathless. He says those words, but doesn't know that they're true.

"I have to leave…I'm sorry." He just looks at me, and then the comprehension comes into his face, understanding and pain.

"You don't…?"

"No, I do, more than anything but I don't…. I can't…I'm sorry."

"So you've said."

"I should go."

He says nothing. It rings in my ears as if he was screaming at me.

"Goodbye." My voice suddenly stops working. I stumble out of his house, out into the night, because if I stay any longer I'll break my promise and tell him everything, and that I can't do. Adn as I stumble in the dark I realize that I'm whispering to the night without volition: I'm sorry, my love. I'm sorry, so so so sorry, but that doesn't make any difference.

I find myself huddled on the floor of the little shepherd's cottage where Gwenhwyfar came to deposit Bran in this time. He doesn't remember finding that out. I realize that I'm still wearing his sweater and I tear it off. It smells of him. My skin smells of him, and I want him, and I can't bear it. I go back out into the rain, letting it wash his kisses off me, but I know how ineffective it will be. Nothing can wash them off. Nothing will change this, though I could make him forget all of it with a wave of my hand. I won't. I've done too much of that already.

Back in the cottage I lie on the floor, not sleeping not thinking not remembering. Two words chase each other through my head, circling around like two vultures cornering a small helpless creature. I'm. Sorry. And then even that goes away, and all is blank except for four letters, one syllable, and I swear it's engraved on my eyelids in flaming letters because no matter what I do I can still see it, still hear it.

Bran.


End file.
